Winter 2027

For day, time, room, and TA information, see our: 
PDF Schedule or Schedule Builder

For all courses not described here, see:
Catalog Descriptions

Undergraduate Courses

Lower Division

  • COM 001 Major Works of the Ancient World, various instructors

  • TBD

  • COM 002 Major Works of the Medieval & Early Modern World, various instructors
  • TBD
  • COM 003 Major Works of the Modern World, various instructors
  • TBD
  • COM 004 Major Works of the Contemporary World, various instructors
  • TBD
  • COM 005 Fairy Tales, Fables, & Parables, Sven-Erik Rose
  • TBD
  • COM 006 Myths & Legends, Cheri Ross
  • TBD
  • COM 053A Literature of East Asia, Mingrui Wen
  • TBD

Upper Division

  • COM 110 Hong Kong Cinema, Sheldon Lu

  • This course is a study of the cinema of Hong Kong, a cultural crossroads between East and West. Students examine the history, genres, styles, stars, and major directors of Hong Kong cinema in reference to the city's multi-linguistic, colonial, and postcolonial environment. The course pays special attention to Hong Kong cinema’s interactions with and influences on other filmic traditions such as Hollywood and Asian cinema. Topics may include characteristics of Hong Kong cinema as a local, regional, and global cinema; historical evolution of film genres and styles; major directors and stars; film adaption of literary works about Hong Kong; Hong Kong cinema’s international influence.  The class will watch and discuss films involving directors, actors, and actresses such as Wong Kar-wai, John Woo, Stephen Chow, Ann Hui, Peter Chan, Fruit Chan, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-fat, Tony Leung, Andy Lau, Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung, and many others.

  • COM 156 The Ramayana, Danny Dyer
  • TBD
  • COM 172 Arabian Nights, Jocelyn Sharlet
  • TBD

Graduate

  • COM 210 Topics & Themes in Comparative Literature: Literature and the Archive, Toby Warner
  • What is an archive? What can practices of literary and historical reading stand to learn from each other? In this course we will consider how two interlinked kinds of objects – the archive and the literary text – raise fundamental questions of how and why we read. We will engage with a variety of literary texts that ask how it is possible to speak for the past in the wake of shattering historical phenomena of various kinds. We will also investigate what opens up when we read archives as literary texts, and ask what happens when literary works position themselves as alternatives to official historical records. To sharpen our archival thinking, we will supplement literary and theoretical readings with guided mini-archival assignments. Literary texts may include authors such Assia Djebar, WG Sebald, Amitav Ghosh, Aimé Césaire, and Mariama Bâ. Theoretical readings may include Walter Benjamin, Stephen Best, Michel Foucault, Simon Gikandi, Edouard Glissant, Saidiya Hartman, Lisa Lowe, José Esteban Muñoz, Christina Sharpe, Anne Laura Stoler, Diana Taylor, and Michel Rolph Trouillot.
  • COM 210 Topics & Themes in Comparative Literature, Sheldon Lu 
    Special Topic: World Cinema
  • This seminar examines "world cinema" as a concept, as a critical discourse, and above all as the practices of diverse cinematic traditions of the world. We will also tackle related categories of contemporary film studies such as “national cinema,” “transnational cinema,” “global cinema,” “third cinema,” “third-world cinema,” and postcolonial cinema.  Depending on student interests and enrollment, comparative case studies will be drawn from countries and regions from around the world, such as Asia, Europe, Africa, and America.  Special attention will be given to East-West cross-cultural interflows in the traveling of images, discourses, and ideas.  As we look at some pivotal moments in world film history, we also raise broad issues in current film studies such as globalization, diaspora, cinematic style, national identity, visual culture, and film industry.  Students will examine the ideas, practices, and styles of a variety of filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, R. W. Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard, Yasujiro Ozu, Gillo Pontecorvo, Wong Kar-wai, Jia Zhangke, Zhang Yimou, Ousmane Sembene, Claire Denis, and others.